A moratorium on Genetically Modified Foods.
The most powerful recent statement about the ills of GMO foods comes from the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. They have called for a moratorium on GMO foods on May 19, 2009, asking for the following immediate emergency measures to be taken:
- Implementation of immediate long-term safety testing and labelling of GMO food.
- Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community and the public about the risks and avoidance GMO foods.
- Physicians to consider the role of GMO foods in their patients’ disease processes.
- More independent long-term scientific studies gathering data to investigate the role of GMO foods on human health.
This has all come from growing data from multiple animal studies showing how GMO foods cause damage to various organ systems in the body. The serious health risks associated with GM food consumption include infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signalling and protein formation, as well as changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system. “Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients, but need to know how to ask the right questions,” said Dr. Jennifer Armstrong, President of AAEM. The most common foods in North America which are consumed that are GMO are corn, soy, canola, and cottonseed oil.
On top of this on May 14, 2009 industry groups in Australia, Canada and the US pledged to “work toward the goal of synchronized commercialization of biotech traits in our wheat crops.” This means they want to challenge the 2004 rejection of GMO wheat by farmers and consumers across the globe.
In short, the genetic engineering industry is choosing to ignore the causal health effects of GMO foods in animals while pushing for more GMO foods in the food chain. One of our main concerns with current regulations is that of food labelling. We are not given the option to choose non-GMO because there are currently no such labelling requirements. This is a basic consumer right. The next concern is that once the GMO crops have been introduced, cross pollination and seed contamination soon corrupt the organic non-GMO crops. Lastly are the health concerns of GMO foods. At this point there is not enough data to show the effects of GMO foods on human health, which is due to the lack of serious ongoing studies. Nonetheless there still should be concern since there is direct evidence of health effects in animals. So, as long as the animals we eat continue to get fed the GMO grains we will see health effects in humans.
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